That World
by Haelwyn
Summary: A girl dreams of another world. A boy dreams to create that world for her. Using different characters, this story still aims to be true to the soul of the movie.
1. Chapter 1

"_The universe had once been a small cloud. The cloud exploded into lots of little bits. The little bits formed the planets. Little tiny bits grew on the surface of the planets, and that was the beginning of life."_

"Elizabeth--"

"_Other bits decided to became bright, and they became the stars. Some stars stayed away from life and decided to become pretty little constellations in the night sky. Other came near the planets, and became the suns."_

"Elizabeth."

"_There was one planet that decided to sprout figures with a head, a torso, two arms, and two legs. And that was the beginning of humans._"

"Elizabeth!"

Elizabeth jumped in her seat, her pencil fell out of her hand.

"Really, Elizabeth, no matter how many times I scold you, you still never learn," the teacher said, more out of exasperation than anger. "Pay attention in class! There's a time for study, and there's a time for idle drawing. Right now you'd better focus on my subject. It's for your own future, you know."

"Sorry, ma'am," Elizabeth said in an apologetic tone. "I promise to do better in class."

"I hope that that will be a promise you can keep," she said sternly, turning away and returning to the front of the classroom.

Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief as she looked around her chair for her fallen pencil. Spying it on her right side, she reached over the arm of the desk-chair.

"I got it," her seatmate said, picking up the pencil before she could get to it. "Here you go."

"Thanks, Luke," she mumbled, unceremoniously taking the mechanical pencil. She jabbed the button end on the desk a few times to check if it was still working.

"Man, Elizabeth, be more careful with your stuff," Luke said, shaking his head at the way she treated her mechanical pencil. "And with the teachers. That's the 3rd teacher who's noticed you spacing out—Hey, hey, don't space out on me too! Listen to me!"

"_And so humans overran the earth and brought nature to its knees. For lack of anything else to do, they started taking over each other's tribes, until nothing remained. Thus was the end of humanity."_

Elizabeth held up her notebook and observed it with a blank stare. Coming back to full awareness, she suddenly realized that she'd filled the page's borders with her space thoughts. She swore under her breath, tore out the page, crumpled it, and sweeping it off her desk.

"No, it's no good," she mumbled to herself. She gave off a quick puff of breath before suddenly fervently copying off the blackboard again, replacing the notes she had just chucked.

Luke picked up the crumpled paper, smoothed it out and folded it. "That girl, she's at it again," he said quietly to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

"_Fly high enough into the heavens, and the sky will disappear from your sight. Dive deep enough into the ocean and the--"_

Elizabeth looked around, tapping her pencil against her notebook. She looked to her right and saw kids playing volleyball. To her left, there were kids playing soccer. Straight ahead, there were kids running around on the vast expanse of green lawn. Beside her on the bench, a girl was resting, sweating, drinking from a bottle of cool water. Beads of moisture rolled down the bottle, landing on the girl's cheek and mixing with the salty beads of sweat. The girl stood up and ran back to her game, in which direction, Elizabeth didn't notice, as she went back to her notebook.

"_Dive deep enough into the ocean and the droplets of water will hide themselves from you."_

A bee buzzed by her ear and she waved it away with her hand. It flew away among the flowery bushes that grew around the perimeter of the lawn.

"_This is what the busy bee told me once, on the edge of the world._"

"Here at the edge of the world, there exists--," she wrote down, muttering the words out loud.

"There exists what?" asked a voice from behind her, its small cool breath on her neck.

She jumped and dropped her pencil and notebook in the tall grass. Turning around, she saw only the flowery bushes, and beyond that, south wall of the school building. She looked left and right along the narrow walkway that led around the building. There was no one in sight.

Warily looking around, she picked up her pencil and notebook and sat back down.

"At the edge of the world, there exists a lone specimen of life, waiting--," she continued.

"Waiting for what?" came the voice again with the coolness on her neck.

Elizabeth shivered, jumped, turned around, and flung her pencil out behind her, all at the same time.

"Stop talking into the back of my head you dimwit!" she shouted.

Luke, who had been walking the pathway around the south wall of the school building, was naturally surprised by a projectile being launched at him for no apparent reason, coupled with the shouting of a girl who was generally perceived as crazy. He had been reading a comic book when the mechanical pencil shot by 2 centimeters from his face. Dropping the book, his hands shot out to catch the deadly weapon.

He shot Elizabeth a face full of mixed emotions; mostly surprise and shock, with a hint of awe, and just a tinge of disgust.

"Stop going around trying to kill innocent people!" he shouted back, throwing the mechanical pencil with an underhand throw. "And take better care of your stuff!"

"S-sorry, I promise I won't do that next time," she said, catching the pencil in both hands, looking around suspiciously.

Luke watched her pick up her notebook from the grass near the bench and run off somewhere into the schoolyard. She got hit in the shoulder by a volleyball but she just shrugged off the apologies and just kept on running.

He looked around warily. "Somebody talking into the back of her head? She must be having delusions," he thought to himself, shaking his head.

At the foot of the bush, on his side, he saw a crumpled piece of paper. Picking it up and smoothing out, he shook his head again. "That girl, she's at it again."


	3. Chapter 3

_At the edge of the world there is a -_

Elizabeth stopped writing and scratched her head. "At the edge of the world there is a -," she said to herself, hoping hearing her words would help her remember. "Oh darn it, I won't be able to remember what I wrote then."

She sighed and sprawled out on the bleachers of the gym, notebook rolled up in one hand, mechanical pencil in the other. "At the edge of the world," she said to herself, "a lone specimen waits…" she continued.

She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. "Edge of the world," she muttered. Elizabeth shook her head vigorously and lay back down. Seeing the criss-crossing beams of the gym's ceiling, she gave a little gasp and sat back up, notebook and pencil at the ready.

"The dome of the world!" she said out loud.

_Under the dome of the world, a lone specimen holds its hands up._

"… hands… up," she said to herself as she wrote the words. She stretched one hand up to the ceiling, then brought it back down again. "The… axis-," she continued writing.

_She stands on the earth, and spins the sky around it. She turns it from east to west, the sun a constant moving sticker on the dome. The moon is a ball hanging by a string that she twirls every time it passes by. She sneezes and the clouds appear and move, she cries and they start to rain. When she yawns-_

Elizabeth yawned and stretched her arms outward. "When she yawns," she said out loud, as she brought pencil to paper again.

_When she yawns and stretches, she knocks the sun away and sends the moon twirling. When her head starts to nod-_

Elizabeth's head started to nod. "… starts to nod-," she continued.

_When her head starts to nod and she starts seeing stars-_

Her head nodded again, her field of vision narrowed to slits, and she heard only a faint buzzing as she fell back softly onto the bleachers.

_The world sees the stars, too_, she heard a voice say in between the buzzings in her head.

The end-of-lunch bell rang promptly at the end of lunch, and Elizabeth jerked awake. She looked around, mildly confused. Looking down at her notebook, she saw that her writing ended up as unintelligible squiggles that trailed down the page.

"No good," she said to herself, patting herself on the face to wake herself up. "This shouldn't be happening to me."

"What shouldn't be happening to you?" she heard the voice continue in between the buzzing.

"Who's there?" she cried. Elizabeth whipped around, her ponytail splaying onto her face as she peered into the darkness of the underside of the bleachers. She saw nothing and shivered. She waved away a fly buzzing near her ear and stood up from where she sat. She ripped the ruined page out of her notebook and tossed it behind her.

Jumping down from the bleachers, she hopped in place a bit, turning around as she did so. Half-expecting to see Luke standing in the shadows, she continued to look around the gym. Half-disappointed that he wasn't there, she stopped and sighed before calmly walking to the exit.

She walked into the middle of the corridor and was half-surprised to see Luke walking straight towards her. He seemed equally as half-surprised as she half-called his name with a half-gasp.

"Hurry up," was all he could say, not breaking stride. "You're going to be late. Start running!" Luke said, pointing his hand forward, in the direction of their next class.

Elizabeth continued her gasp, taking a deep breath and taking large steps towards their classroom. Luke chuckled softly as he abruptly turned and walked into the gym. Looking around on the bleachers, he spotted the crumpled sheet of paper wedged between the rails. He ran towards it, his shoes clacking against the wooden floor, and made a tremendous leap onto the bleachers, swooping down with his hand to grab the paper as he took another tremendous leap off the bleachers, doing a little half-turn in the air to land back on the wooden floor. He smoothed out the paper on his chest, took a short glance and nodded to himself. "That girl, she's at it again."


End file.
